Post-Digital Vitalism

FFor a long time, machines took over the work of our hands, and we moved into the work of the mind. Now they are learning that too. Soon they will run most things.

That could be the best thing that has happened to us. When machines provide what we need, a life no longer has to be measured by what it produces. It can be measured by how alive it is.

Some of us will work alongside AI, and that is a good life too. Most of us will turn back to what we are made of. Our bodies and our food. Health, and caring for each other. Quiet. Animals, the land, and looking after it. Making things with our hands.

There will still be work, and we may be asked to help. But the work that matters will be what people give each other: bread from a baker who knows your name, a class with a teacher who sees you, a meal someone cooked for you.

None of this is a plan. It is what happens when the digital becomes like the weather, always there and rarely noticed, and people are free to be people again.

Eat first, compute second.

Tiago Pita